Jungeun Park — Stained-echo

In music, elements sometimes make an appearance which are not connected to any previous occurrence - as if out of nowhere; and others that derive from a – possibly stereotypical - sequence of incidences such as, for instance, beat and reverberation in modern music.

Music without any kind of elementary connection is impossible for us to imagine, owing to our education and habits. What we hear inevitably raises certain expectations. Both in tonal and atonal music, the aim was always to play with familiar patterns and to either expand or to destroy them.

When I first arrived in Germany in 2012, I visited various churches and for the first time encountered old stained glass windows, glass paintings that captivated me. These windows consist of a great number of small pieces in different colours which, taken together, form figures and large images – so there is obviously a connection between the individual pieces. This also means that these fragments are dependent upon each other. This is something that I have transposed into my music – however in my piece I would like to mix some independent particles and materials into the overall image and into the form as a whole, such as unexpected phrases, the sudden arrest of a development, or unnatural processes such as an echo that belongs to a previously heard sound, but which appears in connection with a present one; etc. Just like in a church window, the small pieces that make up the whole have different characteristics. In any case, I hope that by assembling such small details to form a whole, unexpected moments will come to pass, thus affording the listener some new insights.—Jungeun Park, 2018

As part of "impuls" the Klangforum Wien opens its doors for a public rehearsal. Afterwards, the conductor Ilan Volkov, the musicians of the Klangforum Wien, and the composers Nuno Costa, Timothy McCormack, Jungeun Park, Chris Swithinbank and Hakan Ulus, entrusted with impuls composition commissions, discuss which synergies, but also which difficulties, are being exchanged between composers and performers. Moderated by Doris Weberberger.

The talk is being held in English!

Chris Swithinbank - this line comes from the past (public rehearsal)Q & A session with the musiciansDiscussion with Ilan Volkov, the composers and the musicians of Klangforum Wien